


Hodgepodge

by saxophonic



Series: B.A.P Bingo Challenge 2015 [7]
Category: B.A.P
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, M/M, Temporary Character Death, it isn't linear, one of the lives references prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4825685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saxophonic/pseuds/saxophonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Himchan gets to know death pretty well. He also gets to know life pretty well, too. (Fill for "Reincarnation" B.A.P Bingo square)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hodgepodge

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill my "Reincarnation" square for [BAP Bingo Challenge](http://bapbingochallenge.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Instead of posting a WIP, I decided to chop down my idea into this little one-shot. It's different from most of my other fic, but I hope it is enjoyable nonetheless.

The first time, he’s born alone, and he doesn’t realize it. That life is a quick one: nasty, brutish, and short.

He meets Youngjae first, when Himchan’s leading his band of merchants on a vessel bound for foreign port. Himchan’s ship was the fastest, and Youngjae didn’t mind the cramped accommodations. They forge a tentative friendship over late-night drink in the galley. In the morning, they make port without disaster. They don’t see eachother again in that lifetime, but something about the lift in his eyes and the curve of his smile…Himchan knows. Another version of themselves will come through.

Next time, Youngjae doesn’t exist, and Himchan feels it. But he meets Jongup, a hired sword guarding Himchan’s caravan on a trip through the mountains. He wants to protect him, bring him in from mercenary life. It’s difficult to justify when coin is already stretched so thin. Despite this, Himchan makes a bid at the end of the trip, and Jongup accepts. This life is a hard one, certainly, but Jongup makes it easier.

The second time he’s born alone, he recognizes it. He’s meant for something more, connections to people who do not exist now, people who he cannot will into existence. A lonely life amongst the threads, the looms, spinning, spinning, spinning.

Yongguk and Daehyun take him by surprise. Limbs strewn across Himchan’s lap, he meets them in a brothel amongst other pleasure-seekers. He comes back to them, again and again and again, half for the pleasure, half to see if they’ll wake up. If one night he’ll stop in and buy a couple rounds, and they’ll look at him and know. It doesn’t happen. Dying again is almost a relief.

But it does in the next lifetime, as neighbors meeting each other for the first time. Daehyun’s young eyes go wide. They link arms and run off to play and never let go. Himchan misses Yongguk, misses Youngjae and Jongup. He wonders when he’ll see them again, because he knows, deep down, there’s no question of if. It will happen.

The lifetimes when he doesn’t exist, he tries to find the others. To watch them. Seeing them happy, seeing them sad, seeing them alive. They never look quite the same as when he’s in their word. With them.

Himchan’s hair is grey and his face weathered, but so are Yongguk and Youngjae. Though they spend the last years of this life together, it’s well worth it. Himchan sees them off, first Youngjae, next Yongguk, and hopes in the next recurrence they’ll have more time.

It’s painful when Himchan meets Jongup only for a moment, small talk on a train. That life is preferred to the ones where no one else exists at all.

Or all the times Himchan can feel them, knows they’re out there, but their paths never cross.

He likes the ones where they grow up together, for at least for a few years at a time. Or the ones where he meets the other four over the course of one lifetime. It still feels like something’s missing. Someone, maybe. Like their puzzle pieces are still trying to find ways to fit together without edging anyone else out.

It almost coalesces when Himchan meets Junhong for the first time, a lanky little kid with a skateboard in his hand and no roof over his head. They take him in, offering him a life in their garage with the others. Youngjae comes later, brought in by Yongguk, and that feels right. Superficially. It all goes to shit when a deal goes bad, and guns blazing, they fall one by one on the concrete. Himchan bleeds out, going cold, and wonders when they’re going to get it right.

Being a fox is strange, and he wonders if he’ll see them. But when a hound dog sniffs its way into Himchan’s clearing, he knows it’s Yongguk and he is unafraid.

Royal life suits him, Himchan thinks. The decorated horses, the gracious servants, the sumptuous feasts. The friends, the dignitaries, the twinkle in Youngjae’s eye as he takes his place beside him on the royal dais. In the room alone, Himchan spots Yongguk, their captain of the guard, and Jongup, emissary from the south. And they wait to welcome Junhong, the fourth prince of neighboring kingdom, to join them in a recognition of peace today. This life is a long one, and Himchan dies in his sleep at a ripe age.

But his favorite life is the one where he meets Yongguk on the street, just passing by, and they start talking because Himchan can’t let him get away again. Later, when he drops everything to follow Yongguk to the entertainment company, he meets Jongup, dancing like he never knew anything else. There’s Youngjae, a voice Himchan can’t forget and the easy teasing to match, spending his time alongside them. Junhong is young but tall, and Himchan is pleased this lifetime he can watch the boy mature. They fit together, working like a team long used to interacting with pieces missing, making up for the extra soul they all know on some level should be there with them. So when Daehyun arrives at the company, fresh from Busan, falling in line with Youngjae, Himchan looks to Yongguk. And Yongguk sees him. They all do.

This is the life they were meant to lead, for better or for worse.


End file.
